The Northland chiefs Waikato and Hongi Hika with missionary Thomas Kendall in England, oil painting by James Barry, 1820. Credit / Alexander Turnbull Library
Winston Cowie was born in Dargaville, grew up in Mahurangi and captured a generation of oral tradition on the Pouto Peninsula when writing Conquistador Puzzle Trail. The author of several New Zealand historical books and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Winston Cowie lives in Abu Dhabi doing his ''dream job'', managing the United Arab Emirates' marine policy. Here he writes about the value of teaching New Zealand history in schools.
Three years ago I wrote an opinion piece in this very newspaper entitled 'Where's the mana?' asking why it was that New Zealand history was swept under the carpet and not compulsory in New Zealand schools.
Fast forward to September 2019 and we were informed that New Zealand history will be compulsory by 2022.
The mana is coming back to New Zealand history. Finally. After all this time! We are talking hundreds of years here.
And what a history New Zealand has to tell. Stories. Incredible stories. Stories are what it is all about – just ask Tyrion Lannister. I am sure you saw the final Game of Thrones episode.
New Zealand history has stories of inspiration, of courage, of adventure; stories of conflict, heartbreak and pain. All of them give an understanding about how the incredible nation we know today was formed. We look back to understand and help us move forward.
What stories you might ask? Let's start with the Musket Wars, the 1820s.
Did Hongi Hika really travel to England to meet King George V on a ship called the New Zealander, where he was gifted a coat of armour and where he visited Cambridge University?
Did he really purchase 500 muskets in Sydney on the way back, and returning after 457 days away, did he start one of the bloodiest civil wars New Zealand has ever seen?
Or was this a civil war at all? Was it more a continuation of Māori custom, but with more devastating effects because of the muskets?
To give this context, we are talking pre-Treaty of Waitangi here – nearly 200 years ago. Hongi Hika hanging out at Cambridge University. Really?
Did the future, and the first, Māori king, Te Wherowhero, gain his mana in defending his rohe against Hongi Hika? Did 20,000-40,000 Māori die during the Musket Wars?
The Northern War, 1845: What happened at Kororareka, Puketutu, Te Ahuahu, Ohaeawai and Ruapekapeka?
Who were Hone Heke, Tamati Waka Nene, Kawiti and George Grey? Did Kawiti really invent modern trench warfare at Ruapekapeka? Or was this a post colonial revision?
Lots of questions and debates to be had. And with our history being compulsory, knowledge will move forward.
The New Zealand Wars and East Cape – this is fascinating as well. Did you know that Te Kooti, exiled to the Chatham Islands on suspicion of being a spy, mutinied a supply ship, sailed it back to Poverty Bay and began the East Coast Uprising with over 150 other Māori, many of whom had also been imprisoned on the Chathams?
Did you know that simultaneously on the west coast, Titokowaru defeated British forces twice in southern Taranaki?
British forces were stretched. After successive defeats on both coasts and with few soldiers, given most of the Imperial troops had been pulled from New Zealand by then, New Zealand was ripe for the taking.
King Tāwhiao and the Waikato Māori held the balance of power. Would the Waikato support Titokowaru in the east and Te Kooti in the west and attack Auckland?
The future of New Zealand as we know it was at stake. A pivotal moment. A turning point in our history. What happened?
Stories, stories, stories. True stories. Including Te Kooti mutineering a ship from the Chathams over 150 years ago.
These stories should be part of the fabric of New Zealand society, and, post 2022, thankfully they will be. And in making New Zealand history compulsory, to use the New Zealand Wars as an example, we acknowledge and give mana to the lives of the 3000 men, women and children, both Māori and Pākehā, who lost their lives in those wars, fighting for this land that in 2019, nearly five million New Zealanders call home.
Ordinary people. Extraordinary New Zealanders. Fascinating people. Heroes, villains – all depending on one's world view.
There is so much more.
Gustavus von Tempsky – who was he? He lived a fascinating life, travelling from Prussia to Central America to the Californian goldfields, to Scotland, to the goldfields of Australia, to Drury in New Zealand where he became the legend of the militia unit, Forest Rangers.
Manurau, the Māori called him; the bird that flits in many places at once.
Did he deserve a New Zealand Cross as records say he thought he did? What were his motivations? Was he angry at his pending court martial when he was killed by Titokowaru's warriors as the British were trying to take Titokowaru's pa, Te Ngutu o te Manu – the beak of the bird?
Does von Tempsky deserve posthumous recognition, with or any more than others – both Māori and Pākehā? An adventurer nevertheless, Gustavus von Tempsky was a legend of the New Zealand Wars.
Over 3,200,000 acres of Māori land were confiscated in Taranaki, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty, by the way. And this is over 20 years after the Treaty was signed. The wars are the ''what happened next'', the missing bit we weren't all taught in schools because history wasn't compulsory.
Let's go earlier. Abel Tasman was the first European to discover New Zealand, right? Maybe not. My theory is that the Portuguese may have voyaged to New Zealand and mapped part of it and the eastern coast of Australia over 120 years before Tasman. There may also be a Spanish shipwreck on New Zealand's rugged north west coast on the Pouto Peninsula.
Read about this historical puzzle in my book Conquistador Puzzle Trail. It has been translated into Spanish, praised by the Spanish and Portuguese embassies to New Zealand and Australia, added as a source to Te Ara, the online Encyclopedia of New Zealand, and with the support of the Spanish Embassy to New Zealand, we sent over 350 free copies to schools and universities in New Zealand.
Why did we give away history books for free? Because I, like many other Kiwis, am passionate about history. Having people reading these stories and theories like that of the Portuguese and Spanish explorers encourages debate and moves knowledge forward.
What an excellent exam question. Were the Portuguese or Spanish the first Europeans to discover New Zealand?
But, going back to the New Zealand Wars: how can you learn about these fascinating events in New Zealand's history? James Cowan is a primary source, writing in 1923 after interviewing many elderly Māori warriors and British soldiers.
Contemporary historians James Belich and Peter Maxwell have revised Cowan's works. Writer Maurice Shadbolt and myself have written historical fiction based during this turbulent period. My historical fiction is called A Flame Flickers in the Darkness (Amazon Kindle as ebooks Greenstone Trail and Flames Flicker).
Have a read of any or all of the above texts. Learn about New Zealand's forgotten history and be informed of contemporary issues that arise from it. I would argue that the likes of King Tāwhiao, Governor George Grey, Rewi Maniapoto, Wiremu Tamihana, Te Kooti, Wiremu Kingi, Prime Minister Harry Atkinson, Ranger Gustavus Von Tempsky and Colonel Thomas McDonnell are worthy of a place in your consciousness.
And as an afterthought, perhaps Sir Peter Jackson is interested – it would be incredible to see his interpretation of the forging of New Zealand as a nation on the big screen. The script has been written ... and as a sidenote, Orlando Bloom does look like Gustavus Von Tempsky.
Stories, stories and more stories. Read them, learn them and tell them. The mana is coming back to New Zealand history.
There is no need for people to be alone or hungry on Christmas Day with two free events.